


Barcelona, Without Return

by Eavans



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Break Up, Fluff and Angst, Grand Prix, Homophobia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Songfic, Suicide, drunk, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8770441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eavans/pseuds/Eavans
Summary: It’s been a decade since Yuuri won the Grand Prix and he and Victor parted ways. 10 years on and Victor still can’t make sense of it all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **edit: please read[this.](https://justpaste.it/11eo6) writing this was a mistake. i didn't know how ugly suicide was until today. thank you.**  
>  ___
> 
> songs: [Berlin, Without Return](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkW1FX7cbxs) and [Soft & Warm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7UZ0pr-WuU) (these are very important to the plot)
> 
> playlist if you care: [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/eavanmcneil/playlist/6xznvpqEbJZuMcrtwtX14W)  
>  ___
> 
> alternatively titled: _What Do You Know?_

Warnings: alcohol, sex, terminal illness used as metaphor, legislative homophobia, major character death, suicide

___

_He hadn’t taken out their photos since he packed them up all those years ago. The dust wrapped around the box like a blanket, warm and thick against the musk of the cupboard._

_“What are you doing back there?”_

_Someone turned the light on, tepid and blue against the white of the box._

_“Victor, I need you to–”_

_“Stop–Just–” Victor interrupted his husband, shaking his head in pain, “Just give me a moment.” He turned back to the box and waited for the man to leave. A small tear was clouding his vision. They should stop fighting like this._

_It was all so confusing._

_Victor opened the box. In it was all of his old photos from when he knew him. Piled and tied up snapshots from the championships, their hotels, each other–_

_"What happened to us?"_

* * *

 

“Why do you have a camera?” Yuuri picked up the old Nikon around Victor’s neck and played with it. “I think this is probably older than both of us combined.”

“Oh it’s not that old. I got it to take photos. Say cheese!” He snapped a picture of a startled Yuuri, glaring at the flash but happy nevertheless.

“Don’t take weird pictures Victor.”

“No promises!”

“When you're done, may I see them?”

Victor looked up in surprise. “Of course you can. Why would even you ask?”

“I don’t know.”

“What _do_ you know?” Victor joked, taking another photo.

“I know that I’ll never rest now that you have that camera.”

_And he wasn’t wrong._

___

Victor liked when Yuuri drank. It gave him a confidence he didn’t usually have. It was a different kind than the one he got on the ice. It was a confidence of _incredulity–_ like the ethanol traveled ideas from his heart to mouth an bypassed his brain entirely.

“Oh we should get married– could we please get married?” Yuuri sat up with innebreation lining his eyes, glazy and warm against the snow now. He placed a kiss on Victor before letting him pin himself back to the snow, giggly and glowing in the moonlight. They were behind the training center, 2 am in the dark and not a soul to be found in the park.

Victor took his camera from the snow and focused it on Yuuri’s snowy face. “You’re drunk.” _Click._

“Mhmm.”

“What do you know?” Victor chanced.

“I know that I want to be with you forever.”

Victor’s heart hurt.

“Let’s do it just for us.” Yuuri uttered, ignoring the photo that had been taken as his breath spilled out into the frosted air. It blinded him from his sight for just a moment, fogging his glasses and the air around them. “We could get rings and we could kiss for everyone and live together forever and take Makkachin with us and it would be _perfect. ”_

“I–” Victor couldn’t respond. He didn’t think how they could never _really_ be married. Back in Russia it’d be hell. It was the same in Japan. That’s what _he_ knew.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” He kissed him to forget it, wrapping him up in his jacket and letting the alcohol bury deeper into their veins.

“I want to get married,” Yuuri repeated.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Victor tried to rationalize, a whimper in his throat. He smiled against Yuuri’s cheek, thinking the single tear coming down his cheek now was from the cold and nothing else.

Yuuri felt it. His eyes were suddenly very cold as well.

“But nothing does.”

___

There were kisses the night before the Grand Prix, but few, because Yuuri wanted to go to bed early and Victor understood that. He should have probably slept too, but he couldn’t focus on anything anymore. He found himself left alone up on the top floor of the Hotel in Barcelona. He sat on one of the uncomfortable lounge chairs that looked better than the reality and looked out onto the city.

He toyed with his camera, trying to capture the crystal of the street light reflecting back up at him but couldn’t seem to find the shot. He pushed down the camera, angry at the stupid foggy lense and creaky buttons.

It scared Victor how much he liked Yuuri. Being away from him for even a day hurt more than it was supposed to. He figured he was in _love_ , but bit his lip from it, letting the blood flow and mix with saliva as to try and forget it. He wondered if he cried enough he could forget Yuuri, how stupid he had been to fall in love with someone he barely knew.

They were so young. There was so much they didn’t know.

“Victor and Yuuri?” people would say in 30 years, a drink and cigarette handy. “Victims of circumstance... Next?”

___

Yuuri had won the Grand Prix.

All that work and there he was, the _gold_ winner, his body warm against Victor’s skin under the blankets.

He thought about how the world had seen him move that night on the ice, his legs limber and arms soft– how his was neck bruised and his back as red as frostbite now.

“You’re ruining me,” Yuuri smiled at him, not thinking about the mass of photo that would be taken tomorrow, or the one Victor had secretly taken above him.

They were content in the bliss, the question unformulated while the answer stuck in their throats.

“I couldn’t care less.”

“I’ll fire you,” he threatened with only an ounce of sincerity.

“You showed the world this,” Victor continued, ignoring him, “It’s my turn.”

Victor would never admit how much he liked looking at him naked, and he was so shy about it anyways Victor found himself content seeing him with his hands instead. It was so funny how the world coveted their bodies, pinning them to walls and fawning over them, imagining them and recreating them a million times over until nothing was left–

And here Victor was now, taking it back for themselves, running his hands over Yuuri until it made him shudder. It was their own dance, their own routine to perfect– it wasn’t for anyone else anymore.

 _“ What do you know?_ _”_ Victor asked, drinking in the baited breath against his sticky mouth. “Tell me–”

And Yuuri _couldn’t–_ his voice was useless again– messy and hot and broken in the sultry air.

_“ Tell me– ”_

_“ Victor– I–_ _”_ He held on for as long as he could, clinging to his shoulders as he felt his body wrack again, his fingernails trying in vain to find footing. It was too much to talk – _think even_ – as Victor ran his hands against him, his lips quivering with energy.

_“ I-I love you– ”_

Victor wanted to say it back, but his mind betrayed him. “Come here,” he said instead, and with that kissed him into their own oblivion.

___

When journalists called to Yuuri the next morning, and he did the press round and smiled for cameras, Victor couldn’t bare it, and he hated himself for it. The makeup staff gave nervous looks to one another on the bruises, covering it up like it was nothing before inevitably gossiping in the back room.

_The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue–_

His old English lessons came back to him now, and he repeated the saying as he looked at Yuuri, trying to take him in as much as he could.

It was cruelest joke the universe had ever played on him. It was like he was going to be taken from him at any second, like at any pause or breath or blink at the paparazzi Yuuri would realize too that this wasn’t going to work anymore. He half hoped for it – _half dreaded it in fact_ – that it’d be mutual, because then it’d be _forever._

When someone is dying, they are aware of their breaths. In finiteness lies a question, and it leaves the world tasting bitter, confined to a known no one want. In a question of life and death ignorance serves this answer, for the question can not be formulated from abstract ideas of existence beyond, it must be so certain to take the breath from you and turn it bitter as it passes your tongue. The person that is confined to knowing can only wait then– tear themselves up from the insides and gag on the foul air of a question, wait for finity to finish and the question of infiniteness to open up and fester again.

And so their time together crossed into the murky waters of knowns and unknowns, just enough to tie Victor back to his mind– a pool of inaccuracies and miscalculations of knowns so strong it began to drown him now. He’d look at Yuuri and see _finity,_ and it tore him up like the damned to no end.

_Why do I know this won’t work–_

And he didn’t know it then – _and he wouldn’t for many years_ – that it was his own limited mind answering a question that had yet to even be uttered.

_____

It was foggy out when he finally said it. The clouds seemed to suffocate them from the outside in.

“Yuuri, I have to go home now,” he finally said, looking down already in shame.

“What do you mean?”

_Look up you fool look him in the eye–_

“I have things to take care of.”

“When will you be back?” Yuuri walked over and attempted to hug him.

Victor didn’t respond.

“What’s wrong?

_Face him you idiot–_

“I’m not coming back.”

“What?”

“My mother is dying. I need to see her one last time. I need to take care of my family.”

“Well, then I’ll go with you. Of course I’ll go with you–”

Victor stopped him. “Yuuri, what do you know?”

He looked up, confused. “Why do you keep asking that?”

“Because what _do you_ know about where I come from, Yuuri?”

Yuuri paled. He was right. Yuuri didn’t know one thing about him, besides what he’d seen the last 6 months with him. He didn’t know his family, he didn’t know his childhood– he sure didn’t know what _home_ meant for Victor besides himself.

“My country won’t protect us– _I just_ –”

Yuuri hadn’t thought about that. “N-Neither will mine–” he whispered, letting the force of the truth hit him like a punch. Japan wouldn't welcome them back together like this.

“You see?”

“Why can’t we be together?” Yuri whined, denial heavy in his throat.

“The world doesn’t want us. You’ll have no sponsors! No one’s going to want to touch us!”

“You don’t know that, we can show them. _All we have is love_ !” he tried in vain to rationalizw. “It doesn’t matter if we’re _boys–_ ”

He was so sincere it made Victor want to fall to his knees. He couldn’t look at Yuuri. He thought if he looked long enough he’d go blind from guilt.

“Fine.”

The silence of Yuuri shaking his head was shattered by a sob. “How could you think I didn’t want you?”

Victor stayed silent. This was a mistake.

___

“What do you know?”

“I know that _I love you_ and I’m never leaving you. Don’t ever question my love.”

But Victor knew something different.

___

Victor's home wasn’t _their_ home. That was apparent from the first minute they landed. There was a coldness in the _warmth_ this time, a chill of the bone Russia seemed to emanate that stole their kisses, and kept them holed up indoors and in the halls of hospitals as Victor’s mother got sicker and sicker.

It was ironic then that she had heart failure, at 56 she was _so young for it._

It made Victor think maybe age didn’t matter. Maybe he could love Yuuri without being scared.

But the nurses didn’t like when they held hands, and soon enough he saw a glint of fear take Yuuri in the halls and in the spaces that should have been friendly.

They would kiss like they didn’t know anything about the world in their room, like is was only them, like it had always been. They still had sex. It was different though, of course it was. Now it was only after they had gotten into a fight. It would start when Yuuri would get all hot and bothered over something not being the same anymore, like holding hands or being able to hig him outside, and Victor would make some comment on how that was his _home_ , and he couldn’t leave now, maybe ever. But one of them always broke and touched the other and they’d vow to move or something equally ridiculous with their breath on each other again, when their world was everything that made them feel– but it never happened– _it never happened_. The kisses were rough and urgent and it ended too quickly for Yuuri to enjoy it, and it was becoming more common, and he hated that whenever he tried to deepen a kiss Victor would only pull back or bite it to make it stop.

When he was left on the bed he would let the fog of post-sex wash over him like it was a coma. He would get lost in it, opaque visions of him and Victor happy with his around him, arms that were cold and wet and fleeting like the warm bliss he was in now would turn to in just an hour. In between the kisses he wondered who he was, if he was really Yuuri when Victor wasn’t touching him, and it was dangerous thinking, but it was _his_ thinking, and he couldn’t control it– not like this with Victor between his legs and the world stopping before his eyes. It made him think how the water in the Mosvka river wasn’t actual blue at all when he looked into Victor’s eyes, how when he made himself a bath in the big tub white enough to be his skin that it was _clear–_ that it was only because of the cold blue sky forcing its color down above that it was seen it as it wanted to be seen.

What was known was not needed, and what the question was, finally began to be answered.

He wondered if the clear water in the tub knew it was clear, because what he wanted wasn’t true. It didn’t want to be used, it didn’t want to be clean– it wanted to someone to need it. It wanted to have _color_.

___

Victor should have been more prepared when he heard it.

“We need to talk.”

“Yes?” Victor put his phone down.

“What’s going on between us?”

Victor bit his tongue for now. “I don’t know.”

“Why can’t we seem to love each other enough?”

The words broke Victor’s heart.

“The world doesn’t care about love,” he chanced. “I mean–” he struggled to find the right words. Nothing seemed to fit Yuuri.

“What?”

 _“You didn’t know it’d end like this when it started?”_ Victor knew it was the wrong words. He wanted to pull a knife through his own chest for how much he hated himself.

Yuuri shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t think I’d fall in love with you.”

“We barely know each other, can’t you see? Even all this time.” _You’re weak, Victor! Stop it!_

Yuuri just looked down.

There was a silence before the most broken refrain he’d ever heard in his 27 years.

“Don’t you love me?”

Victor couldn’t look at him now. He thought he was going to pass out from want and need and necessity all at once as he looked at the black lashes quivering in front of him. “Of course I do, but it’s not possible. We’re young. We don’t know each other. You need to see the world and I need to stay here in my home and… and nobody want us to exist!”

“I do! _Isn’t_ that enough?”

“Yuuri– _What do you know?”_ He asked one last time, standing up and taking Yuuri’s arms to make him look at him full on.

“I–” Yuuri couldn’t answer. He choked on his words, like the weight _knowing_ had betrayed him. “I don’t know. _I don’t know anymore._ ”

“Because _I know_ I live in a country that doesn’t want us! _I know_ you live in a country that thinks the same thing! Yuuri–" He choked on his words. "I think you should go back home.”

It sat in the air like a rotting corpse. Yuuri looked like he was going to be sick.

 _“No–_ _”_ Yuuri grabbed onto his coat for balance. He had never seen Yuuri look so wild, his face was milky and his mouth open like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to keep him up, his lip shaking like an electrocution. “If I leave–” And there were tears down his face, thick and angry against his cheeks “I’m _never_ talking to you again,” he panted out, his lip snarled. "You'll never _see_ me– you'll never _hear_ of me again!"

“Yuuri–” Victor began to whisper, bringing his hand up to wipe some of his tears away, neglecting his own. Yuuri turned his head sharply away before he could touch him, slapping his hand down in reflex.

_“Just tell me you don’t love me anymore.”_

“Stop it–”

_“Tell me you don’t love me!”_

“It’s not like you don’t love me anymore _either!”_ Victor cried, struggling to breathe.

Yuuri shook his head so violently Victor was afraid he’d snap his neck. He bit his lip until it white and pressed his hands against his face like he was on verge of consciousness, swaying to and fro in their dimly lit room.

_“I have to go. Goodbye.”_

* * *

 

_Victor put the photographs down._

_There were hundreds of them. There they were, dragging their feet through the knowns, in direct violation of creation._

_He pulled out his phone. It took too short of a time to find his number._

_“Um– Yuuri. It’s Victor.” He held his breath. “I don’t know if this is your number still but I was cleaning out some stuff today and I found um,” he struggled to get the words out, half thinking about hanging up and turning off his phone forever. “I have some of our –I mean mine– I mean our old photographs and um… I really wanted to talk to you again… I guess… There’s been a lot going on and I’ve been thinking about everything and… well, we’ll talk. Bye.”_

_Text from: Yuuri (?)_

**_Hello Victor. This is not Yuuri. Please call me._ **

**_____ **

Sometimes Victor was happy Yuuri left social media. It was like he never existed, without updates of new relationships or new friends– and he hated how content he was with that.

For 10 years no words were passed between them. No slip of the tongue or rattle of the teeth, a stroke of the pen or an utterance of existence.

He should have known.

___

Mari stood next to him, and Victor couldn’t help but stare at her and see Yuuri in stare right back at him. His sister was close to 40 now, and her hair was more somber now, black and chin length. Her lips were _his_ lips, her eyes _his_ eyes, and Victor shook his head at how dumb he felt he was being.

“We all wondered when this day would come.”

“I didn’t know–” Victor pleaded, “I would have–”

“It was quiet. Just family. We don’t talk about it.”

“Why doesn’t anyone know?” Victor was confused.

“We don’t want anyone to know.”

“But–”

“It keeps business open. People think they’ll see him. And–” she stopped herself mid-sentence.

“And–?”

“And we didn’t want to hurt you.” She turned to him, a glare in her eyes. “Yuuri was more than you, and I wish he’d have seen that.” Mari's jaw twitched. “Maybe we were the stupid ones. Maybe we _should_ have told the world. The world would speak your name and spit at it.”  

Victor looked down and began to cry. He didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry–”

“You were both idiots.” She ignored him, finishing her cigarette with a final _huff_. She tossed her lighter at him. “I need to go to work. I’ll see you back at the inn.”

Victor waited for her steps to fade. He tried not to think about it as he poured the water over the grey stone, trying in vain to clean it off a little and not think about the ashes below him. He took Mari’s lighter and tried stop the thick fog from petering out the sandalwood incense he’d brought, finally getting it to light after he’d burned half his hand. The universe was laughing at him.

Victor faced the grave. He kneeled, clinging to the box of photographs like it was some kind of anchor. He toyed with the blue letter in his right hand to distract him.

“This is for you.” The box of photographs slid onto the wet rocks and into the arms of the grave. “You can see them now.”

It was a poor sentiment compared to what he held now. “There’s a lot I never showed you. We we’re so young. I wish I’d have time to take more.”

With shaking fingers, he opened the letter Mari had left with him from Yuuri. There were dried tear marks on it. It left some of the pen spreading like cosmos, and Victor touched them tentatively with his fingers before pressing them to his lips in remorse. 

_I'm sorry._

 

_To Victor,_

_I am writing this in my room. I am sad. I could write for a very long time about that but I don’t care anymore. I care about you right now._

_I will miss you. I will miss my mother and my father and Mari with all my heart, but the love I leave here for you is inexpressible. There is an ardour in my heart that burns beyond Earth. I will continue to be devoted to you long after I am gone. I hope that does not scare you._

_I hope you are happy wherever you go. Please remember me if it does not hurt you too much. If it hurts, please forget me. We will have time to talk later. I ask you to be happy without me. We can do that for each other._

_I did not believe in myself until I had you near me. I used to think that was my mistake. The closer I come to my end though, I realize that it was the universe’s mistake. It will play cruel jokes. We are their passion play. It was what I was born for. Victor, I believe I was born to love you._

_I don’t think we ended up the way we did out of any fault of our own. In introspection I have found a fault in the world instead. The world gives us dirty thoughts. It’s no fault of ours that this happened. I forgive you. I hope you will forgive me._

_What do I know? I know that we were happy once._

_I wish I was happy now. This is not your fault. I should have seen this coming. I do not regret it. I was able to see the world for what it was. A beautiful world of hope and warmth and love. I hope in heaven I can see you again. The Gods can not be that cruel. We will have eternity to know one another. We will not be young anymore. We will love each other in the infinity of time and without the questions to stop us._

_Until then, I am with you. When you curse the wind, you curse me. When the rain hits your eyes and blinds you for a second, you will see me. The fog that blurs you is clear as day me, and the stone you throw will take our passions together with it. I will be the summer air we met in and the cold snow I asked you to marry me in. I am with you until we are together again._

_Do not cry for me Victor. Death does not scare me. I am who I was, and I am who I will continue to be. Smell the air for me. Kiss again for me. Skate a lap and remember who we were on Earth._

_What do I know?_

_I know that one day we will be one another’s love again. Until then, I kiss to you with this._

_Yuuri_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: I want it known that suicide is disgustingly ugly. What I wrote has no semblance of what if feels like to be left in its wake. Suicide is not pretty, it offers no comfort to us nor any signs from the other side, and it is truly, _irrevocably_ one of the most baseless acts humanity has put on us. Please remember that mental illness does not deserve to be ignored, as I will tell you this– the reality that you may lose your life is too great a risk for any kind of pride or fear or false pretension that it has singled you out. Mental illness is not selective. Pain does not make sense. Sorrow is a baseless act.
> 
> _from my tumblr:_   
>  _the romanticization of mental illness will never be okay. if you are complacent in treatment because you will have some idea that this was brought upon you for some reason, i will tell you outright mental illness does not make any sense and has not picked you out for any reason. it just does not. you are not supposed to die, and you are not supposed to feel this way. this is like any other physical illness you need treatment for..._
> 
> _a week before it happened i wrote a dumb fic about a character feeling so lost without their love they end up killing themselves. i have always written characters on the edge of suicide for the same reason a lot of people do, to cope. but from the bottom of my heart let me tell you the fucking pain i went through and continue to go through has been so much more than when i was severely depressed. everything hurt more. suicide was no longer this holy means to an end that he and i used to talk about, it was real i was living it. i can fucking scream how much i hated that. when i say people who have never truly felt pain i mean this. if you have truly felt pain about this kind of thing you would know never to light of it, it any context. it’s honestly the most sickening thing i’ve ever had to live through._
> 
> _[anime tumblr](http://shionne.tumblr.com/)   
>  [main tumblr](http://vodkagirls.tumblr.com/) _


End file.
